In this forum paper, I grapple with critical questions about our understanding of science as a discipline and the education standards formulated within that framing. My exploration is contextualized in our current socio-political climate and is presented in discourse with Charity Winburn's "Meeting the needs of the individual student in the…

In the last decades, agroecological and permacultural initiatives and organizations have grown. These initiatives attend to notions of food sovereignty and alternative models of agricultural production. The confluence of different actors and social initiatives through which experiences and knowledge of cultivating food are shared, and new ones are…

This article explores ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) through a Freirean lens of critical consciousness, dialogue, and transformation. The purpose is to draw from where there have been processes of engagement of sociopolitical action in science and how these spaces can become meaningful entry points to take toward making a…

In this paper, we reflect on Luisa Marco-Bujosa's paper, "Soul searching in teaching science for social justice: an exploration of critical events through the lens of intersectionality." Our goal is to offer the reader a deeper understanding of the principles and epistemologies of Afrocentric schooling that were foundational to Faith's…

In this article, the authors engage with Anzaldua's (Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Aunt Lute Books, 1987) notion of borderlands while approaching social science research as a process of (re)membering as explained by Cynthia Dillard (Learning to r(e)member the things we've learned to forget: Endarkened feminisms, spirituality, and the…

This commentary to Ha and Kim's article suggests three ways to expand the interpretive functions of framing to explore and support marginalized students' participation in collaboration and learning, based on our comprehensive review of Ha and Kim's and other relevant studies. We argue that framing can be a useful tool for (1) understanding both…

The spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary challenges in recent history. Amidst this global crisis, various controversies have been emerging about how to manage the virus, ranging from whether face masks should be required as a preventive measure to whether hydroxychloroquine is an…

We design and research family-based science experiences that provide opportunities to enact discovery-oriented approaches to science learning that challenge dominant conceptions of what counts as science learning by bringing families' sensemaking to the forefront. We engaged two approaches. First, we provided families with simple activity prompts…

Besides being a country with high inequality, Brazil faces an alarming sociohistorical moment in which the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is exacerbating a disastrous political situation that promotes polarization and social division. The context of this situation is described here through a critical lens, as a justification for…

The core epistemologies underlying science education have changed little over the past 40 years: whereas science educators tend to take constructivist stances, many or most teachers tend to be concerned with the appropriation and transfer of facts and theories mandated as outcomes in the curriculum guidelines of the relevant authorities (e.g.,…

The myth of Psyche and Eros is startling in its relevance for the existential and ecological crises facing humanity today. Taking up the images therein, this article explores possible ways that science education can address the epistemological roots of environmental destruction, especially through the practice of Goethean observation. Calling on…

This paper curates four experiential narratives and poetry by the five co-authors that illustrate epistemic and ontic shift from the Modern Western (ModWest) mindset to a holistic, embodied and animistic mindset. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, yet having been systemically influenced by the dominant ModWest views and values, each…

This paper explores various theories of curriculum intending to provide a new approach--which we regard as a significant theoretical contribution--to examine the broad set of different discourses that have been shaping science education. We first introduce concepts and values that support traditional and critical curriculum theories and offer some…

Although in-depth educational reviews can be carried out building on curricular theories, the appropriation of this knowledge by science education scholarship can still be considered timid. In this paper, our intention is to work on this interface; we first introduce basic concepts from the main curricular frameworks and bring possible…

In the context of the science versus creationism debate, Elizabeth Watts thoughtfully explores Buddhism as a model of compatibility between science and religion, and as inspiration for the pedagogical potential of mindfulness practices to promote student receptivity to scientific views of evolution. However, Watts focuses on modern Buddhist…